The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm announced that Kathleen Kennedy will step down as President of Lucasfilm and be replaced by Dave Filoni, who will be President and Chief Creative Officer and Lynwen Brennan, who will be Co-President.
As part of the announcement, Kennedy stated, “When George Lucas asked me to take over Lucasfilm upon his retirement, I couldn’t have imagined what lay ahead. It has been a true privilege to spend more than a decade working alongside the extraordinary talent at Lucasfilm.”
“Their creativity and dedication have been an inspiration, and I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished together,” she added. “I’m excited to continue developing films and television with both longtime collaborators and fresh voices who represent the future of storytelling.”
The announcement is not at all surprising given less than two weeks ago Matthew Belloni at Puck reported that Kennedy would be stepping down from Lucasfilm in the near future.
While it’s not surprising, it still leaves some questions unanswered, specifically what Kennedy’s relationship will be with Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company moving forward. While she won’t be President anymore, she addressed a previous rumor about her departure in an interview with Deadline last year that was going to be at Lucasfilm for a number of years even after she stepped down as President.
“I’m producing the Mandalorian movie right now, and I’m also producing Shawn Levy’s movie, which is after that. So I’m continuing to stay at Lucasfilm and looking very thoughtfully with Bob and Alan as to who’s stepping in. So that is all underway, and we have every right to make that announcement when we want to make it,” Kennedy said.
Additionally, she added, “We’ll probably make an announcement months or a year out, and I have every intention of sticking around to help that person be successful. I’m already producing the Mandalorian movie, and Shawn Levy’s is after that.”
In fact, when she was even asked if she might stay at Lucasfilm for another 8 or 10 years, she answered, “I don’t know if I’m going to say that, but yeah, it’s possible.”
It's nice that she's sticking around. I look forward to more Star Wars flops that I can laugh at. She's to Star Wars what Kevin Feiggot is to the MCU - an abject failure. And don't tell me that Feige had some successes - he was never responsible for the good MCU movies. All of those people were removed so that Feige would have free reign to destroy everything.